When is blackface not blackface?

Bring Receipts has arrived! Grab your tanning pills and get ready to talk about the 1986 movie, Soul Man. This film follows the journey of Mark Watson (C Thomas Howell) a white student forced by his rich parents to pay for law school on his own. So what does he do? As Brandi describes it, he "inhabits the body of a black person" in order to get a scholarship to attend Harvard Law School. 

Brandi argues it's the most progressive movie of the 1980s. Steven completely disagrees. Joining the pod to decide who is right is activist/DJ/ and tastemaker: Kwesi Chappin (@KwesiC).

This episode covers the history of blackface, race in the 1980s, and the illustrious (or not so) careers of Rae Dawn Chong and C Thomas Howell.

Let us know who you think won via Social Media:
Twitter: @bring_receipts
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Follow BR Hosts on Twitter:
Brandi Collins-Dexter (@BrandingBrandi)
Steven Renderos (@stevenrenderos)

Artwork & Logo by:
Andrés Guzmán (IG: andresitoguzman)

Beats by:
DJ Ren

Chapters

• 2:04 Intro To Soul Man
• 18:08 Soul Man Movie Trailer
• 30:20 Summary of Brandi's Argument
• 31:42 Kwesi Chappin Interview
• 39:30 The Debate
• 1:06:13 The Rebuttal
• 1:16:47 The Decision

Transcript

S1Ep1 Bring Receipts: When is blackface not blackface?

Opening:

Brandi: You can put...you can keep this. I know you're taping right now. 

Steven: Yeah. 

Brandi: Keep this. I put it. I put it on everything. 

Steven:  OK. 

Brandi: I'm going to go. I'm going to watch the movie this week, and I'm going to come back. I'm going to say I still feel like Soul Man is the most progressive film of the 1980s. 

Steven: I just want to...I want to know if you feel like--

Brandi: Well, let me hold on. Let me let me add a little bit to that (laughs) that was made by white people. (Both laugh)

Intro

Steven: I'm Steven. 

Brandi: And I'm Brandi. 

Steven: And welcome to the very first episode of Bring Receipts. On this podcast, Brandi and I will argue our unpopular opinions about pop culture. 

Brandi:  In today's episode, we decide to go into the deep end of the pool. We're debating Soul Man, the 1986 movie about a white student who performs blackface...Allegedly...To go to Harvard Law School. I believe it's the most progressive film to come out of the 1980s. 

Steven: I completely disagree. 

Steven: Joining us to decide who is right is special guest Judge Kwesi Chappin. So hold on to your tanning pills. It's time to bring receipts. 

Segment A: Background

Soul Man movie clip: There's nothing between Whitney and me. She just likes me because I'm black. I mean, because she thinks I'm black. I mean, when I got involved with her, I was really white on the inside, although I was black on the outside. But now a part of me is black on the inside, even though I'm white on the outside, I don't know, maybe I'm sort of gray on the inside and the outside. Sarah..what I'm trying to say to you is I'm actually white, 

Steven: You really outdid yourself here, Brandi. I mean, what a way to kick off this podcast. Why are you forcing me to debate about blackface? I really don't think it's fair. 

Brandi: Wow. First of all, force is a strong word. So we are going to debate whether or not this is blackface. But just to give some back story here, this movie Soul Man, which dropped in 1986, and I'll talk about why that's important later. The plot is that Mark Watson, who's played by C. Thomas Howell, is a lazy but smart playboy from Southern California who gets admitted to Harvard. But his millionaire daddy won't pay the tuition. 

Steven: What's funny about that scene where Mark Watson's dad tells him he's not going to pay for tuition is that he does it while hanging from these gravity boots...It's actually the first time I've seen one of these, even though I've known about them for years, because, as you know, I grew up in Los Angeles. When I was in high school, I actually worked at a sporting goods store in Beverly Hills. And I can't tell you how many rich white people would come in trying to buy gravity boots. And one, we didn't sell them, but two, I actually had no idea what these things were. So I try to get them to describe it and it never made any sense. I tried selling these people ankle weights instead. 

Brandi: OK, so first of all...is there a part of you that wishes you had gravity boots? 

Steven: No, I have no idea what it does. I don't I don't understand. With the physical benefit of having gravity. 

Brandi: Not curious at all?

Steven: I didn't get that scene at all 

Brandi : In any event. So like rich kid, he got into Harvard, he's in L.A. and his dad is like, "I'm using your tuition money for a timeshare," which is not something I feel like has happened. Not never...with rich white people, but whatever. That's the plot line. So he realizes that he's going to have to pay for it on his own and he goes to try to get a loan. But because he doesn't really have a credit history, he can't get a loan from a bank. And as I think most of us of a certain age know, at this point, of course, laws have been changed since then. So predatory student loans are much more regularly available. So this probably wouldn't have happened today. But at that point, he finds that there's a scholarship. So any black students in the Los Angeles area who have already gotten into Harvard could apply for this scholarship that would cover their tuition based on needs and would give them extra money and a stipend for housing and things like that. So he applies for it, he gets it, and then he...then has to inhabit the body of a black person. 

Steven: You make that sound like it's mystical, Brandi. You make it sound like he does a seance and somehow gets into Harvard, you're beating around the bush. What is he doing??? 

Brandi:  He has to slip into the beautiful, glistening skin..

Steven: He slips into the waters of Lake Minnetonka and comes out...

Brandi: OK no. So he has to take these chemical tanning pills, which is also like the most 1980s white person thing ever. So he has to take these tanning pills, but he basically overdoses on the tanning pills so that he looks like he has black skin. 

Soul Man movie clip 

Gordon: I don't know how to tell you this, but you're not tan. You're black. 

Mark:  Yeah, I exceeded the recommended dosage. These babies are my ticket into Harvard Law School. I'm going on the Henry Q Bouchard Memorial Scholarship for the best black applicant for Los Angeles. 

Gordon: Mark, this is crazy, you can't do this. 

Mark: I already did it!

Gordon: But Mark, you can't just take a scholarship away from some black person... 

Mark: Gordo Gordo Gordo. How many people do you think from Los Angeles got accepted into Harvard this year? About four. And out of that four how many do you think were black? One. Uno. And that guy got a better deal from Stanford. 

Gordon: So if you hadn't come along, the money would have just sat there.

Mark: Exactly! 

Gordon: But Mark do you realize what this means? You're going to have to be a black person. 

Mark: No shit. 

Gordon: Yeah, but for three years Mark. Three years. What's that going to be like? 

Mark: Gordo, it's going to be great! these are the 80s, man, the Cosby decade. America loves black people. 

Brandi: There have been critiques from people that have said that he doesn't look realistically black. And I'm just going to say: one, most white people don't really know black people, so they probably wouldn't really know the difference anyway. And two he lowkey, looks like, I think, the dude Wes from How to Get Away with Murder. So, like, I actually do feel like (laughs) he's believable enough that nobody wants to ask questions without looking crazy. 

Steven: And in fact, by the time he gets to Harvard and he actually meets like the first probably a real black person we meet in the film play by Rae Dawn Chong, she is just like, yo, come out to the Black Student Association meeting. 

Brandi: It's yeah. I think maybe before that he meets...I can't remember if he meets the Barack Obama character earlier. I can't remember if the basketball scene happens before or after that. But so he meets a black woman who is also a Harvard law student. She invites him to the Black Law Student Association and he goes through a series of incidents in which he is being treated a certain way because the outside world perceives him as being black. And he's trying to negotiate that while trying to build this relationship with this black love interest in Rae Dawn Chong (Sarah). He has a lot of people that are kind of wanting to see him fail. So there's like a Trumpian landlord that's introduced that wants to find a way to get him kicked out of the housing because he doesn't even want any black people in his house or in his apartment complex. So there's stuff around that. You know, there's stuff about other white students that question whether or not he deserves to be at Harvard. So he has these different experiences. And he also has a black law professor, which is played by James Earl Jones, who he kind of initially thinks because he's a black professor and he's a black student, that he's going to be held with kid gloves. But actually, James Earl Jones is riding him and Sarah, (Rae Dawn Chong) harder than any of the other students. 

Professor Banks (James Earl Jones): You'll get no special treatment for me, Mr. Watson. Do you hear me? No special treatment. And if that means you've got to work twice as hard as these little white shits, then you damn well better work twice as hard. 

Brandi: That's essentially the plot, him being sort of like "Black like me," which is a famous book about a white journalist that spent some time in the south posing as a black man and writing about his experiences. Also worth noting that at the time that the script was being written, Eddie Murphy was on Saturday Night Live. And a couple of years before this movie comes out, he actually does a skit called White Like Me, where he's talking about the experience of being white in America and all the benefits that come from it. And I almost wonder if there's a little bit of a weird tip of the hat to that, because in the Saturday Night Live skit, Eddie Murphy goes to a bank to try to get a loan. And without credit history, he's actually given whatever it is that he wants, I think even more money than he asked for, whereas in Soul Man, part of what kicks off this journey is the student attempting to go to a bank cold and get a loan and being turned down. So there's some interesting parallels like that that I think were somewhat of a guide, I think, for the scriptwriter as she was developing this out. And I know that you did a little bit of research about the script writer Carole Black. So what you find, there?

Steven: Interesting career with Carol Black. So she has a pretty extensive career, doing a lot of TV writing before Soul Man, which was, I think, her first feature length film writing credit. She wrote on a couple of seasons of Growing Pains, but she also went on to do some pretty extensive writing for The Wonder Years...was the creator for The Wonder Years, which was a significant show for me, it was very formative in my young young adult life, and she also went on to be the creator and writer for The Ellen Show. Which, of course, was a very formative show for gay and queer representation in TV. And then lastly, like most recently, she's been working on a documentary. She did a documentary, which I'm not going to remember the name of it, but it had to do with education and Western education being taught out internationally in global south countries. And the movie, if I remember correctly, like what it posits is that if you wanted to change ancient ancient culture in a generation, the best way to do that is by changing the way that you educate children. So the whole film goes into this thing about white Western culture, indoctrinating young children in a different style of education that undercuts local local knowledge and ancestral knowledge. And I can't remember the name of it at all. 

Brandi: It's called "Schooling the world, the white man's last burden"

Steven: I disagree with that part of the title. There's many burdens that the white man still has to deal with, but education is certainly one of them for sure. So it's interesting that that this is the path for her going from blackface to critiques on education. 

Brandi: I think the other interesting thing to note here is when she writes a script, she's in her early 20s herself. And I think she just graduated from Swarthmore College, if I'm not mistaken. So experience at this elite liberal arts college dealing with, you know, I think the type of characters that we meet in this book (film). So I think she's fresh off of that college experience and interactions as she's writing the script for this film, which I actually think is part of what makes it so sharp in its critique, which we'll get to later. But I do want to talk about a couple of pieces around this. So, one, what was the reception of the film? And so...We have Siskel and Ebert who gave this, I don't know, do you remember how many stars they gave it? 

Steven: Roger Ebert review is just the one star I don't know where they ultimately both landed together, but Roger Ebert was definitely was definitely not in on it. 

Brandi: They both hated it for sure. 

Steven: Yeah. 

Brandi:  And then you also have Rita Kempley, who is a film critic at The Washington Post. I just want to read a little bit of what she says, because she ethers the hell out of this film. And so and Carol Black as well. So she says, C. Thomas Howell, who plays the lead character, is "a second string, Rob Lowe has the title role in this embarrassing variation on Black Like Me, a half witted collegiate farce guaranteed to offend just about everybody. Blacks are stereotyped as they haven't been in decades, and whites are portrayed as Boston bigots and selfish preppies. But the really pathetic thing about this tired old knee jerker is not that it's racist, but that it's racist and doesn't even know it." And then she goes on to say, "Carol Black, writing her first and potentially last screenplay, seems to think she's the 80s answer to Harriet Beecher Stowe, a great white mother bestowing largess indiscriminately and in a juvenile comedy format at that. She makes jokes about basketball prowess and organ envy and then expects a tug at our heartstrings when the undercover hero learns that blacks face discrimination in the Ivy League." (laughs) And I just want to say...she didn't like this film. 

In Living Color Clip:  Hated it. 

Brandi: Yeah, that was basically basically her thing. But I want to note this, so in Kempley's review, she says blacks are stereotyped as they haven't been in decades. It's worth noting that less than five years earlier, Columbia Pictures released the movie The Toy, starring Richard Pryor and one of the kids from a Christmas story. And this dumpster fire of a movie. Richard Pryor is literally purchased as a human toy for a rich little white boy who goes by the name Master Eric. At that time, Rita Kempley said that The Toy, quote, "would improve with a little tinkering. Still, it's Sure-fire family fare."

Steven: So if Richard Pryor had played this character instead of C Thomas Howell, it probably would have gotten a different reception. 

Brandi: I don't know. But yeah, Rita Kempley in her assessment that black people were being stereotyped like they hadn't been, I think was wrong. There were also a lot of different movies releasing all sorts of stereotypes and storylines involving things like innocent suburban white kids ending up in dangerous urban situations involving hood black people that are usually gang members, burglars or prostitutes. So, I mean, you know, I think it's a bit of what I think is interesting. And I'll save a little bit of this for the argument later is that there is this immediate response. It's a knee jerk response from the white critics space that this movie is so troubling and problematic and should not be accepted by mainstream audiences. And then on the other end of that, we also have critiques coming from a number of black people and filmmakers. 

Most notably, Spike Lee provides commentary. He does say that he has not seen the movie and there's no indicators that today he's seen the movie. But this idea of, you know, blackface or the experience of being black played for laughs in this type of film he found deeply troubling. And this is pre- Do the Right Thing and that era of Spike Lee. But certainly he's making his mark as a young filmmaker. And the other piece to this is that we we have the Hollywood NAACP coming out and saying that the plot revealed, quote, "the racism and sexism of the film's creators." And UCLA's Black Student Alliance protested over what they called, quote, "false statements about the economic realities of blacks that black students face at the school." And again, I think both of these critiques are coming out on the eve of the film being released. So not necessarily always in response to the film itself, but just I think based on the trailer, which did you want to play a clip of the trailer? 

Trailer:

Congratulations, Mr. Watson. 

Mark Watson: Thank you, sir. I'll do my best. 

Voiceover:  Some people do anything to get into Harvard. 

Mark Watson: It's going to be great. These are the 80s Man it's the Cosby decade,. 

Voiceover:  For Mark Watson. All it took was a little soul at all. 

Steven: All it took was a little soul. And what did that soul bring them in the box office Brandi? 

Brandi: The soul brought them in the box office, about 30 million dollars on a $4.5 million budget. So this film was actually a major hit adjusted for inflation that be $85 million dollars in box office today. So it's not necessarily like an Avengers blockbuster, but given that it was made on a $4.5 million dollar budget and made that much, it actually was a pretty significant movie. And that studio that released it, I believe New World Pictures, this movie was so successful that it almost single handedly helped save the studio for a couple more years. So apparently people were not quite as turned off by it as as, you know, Spike Lee or Rita Kempley 

Steven: One of the things that I loved about this film. And there were a lot of things that I hated which we'll get to in the argument later. But they redid the song for the original song Soul Man by Sam and Dave, which was written by Isaac Hayes, but redid the song for the 1980s, which I feel like we're going through, like a generational version of that. Everything's getting remade nowadays, you know, and we're just running it back. This new version included Sam Moore from the original Sam and Dave and then Lou Reed. And it's a very interesting pairing. It doesn't like really gel and make sense because they're both living on two different kinds of musical planes, 

Brandi: What happened to Dave? 

Steven: He was still alive, I looked this up because I thought maybe he had, like, died or something. Nah, homeboy was still around. I don't know what happened. He didn't get the call. Like, they were just like, no, we need we need a little bit of soul 

Brandi: For this we just need Sam...Dave, you're good. We don't need you. 

Steven: I'm sure he still got paid...

Brandi:  I hope so. Or maybe Dave was like nah I'm not going to remake this movie for...I mean I'm not going to remake this song for a blackface movie. In any event the film's a big hit. And I think before we go into the argument, it's, you know, our arguments about whether or not this is a progressive or offensive movie. There's a couple of things that I just want to set us up on in terms of the back story. So this film drops in, I believe, October of 1986. And I just want to take a moment to acknowledge a really important thing that happened in 1986. So that was actually the year that the greatest NFL team in the history of sports, the 85 Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl handily and blessed us with one of the greatest NFL hip hop songs this side of Deon Sanders Must be the Money in the form of the Super Bowl shuffle. So shout out--

Steven: No, hold on. Let me just go ahead and note, this is like you're going ahead and you're going to go ahead and expel your Chicago Bears capital. On episode one of this podcast. Because, yes, I know you're a lifelong, struggling Chicago Bears fan. 

Brandi: Ooooh. So how was your football team doing then? 

Steven: I never claim that I'm like a football. 

Brandi: You can't leave because you're from L.A. Y'all ain't got no legit football teams

Steven: Exactly. I claim what's mine, and that's the Dodgers and the Lakers. You know, the definition of success. But I'm just saying you get to get it out of the way in episode one. That's cool. But if it comes up in a couple of episodes, I'm just going to lightly, gently remind you, like we talked about that already, it's old news. Eighty six bears. We get it. 

Brandi: I got a lot of sports capital to expend on this podcast, Steven, don't you worry. So anyway, this is a period in time and in 1986, a lot of stuff is happening. We have the Challenger explosion. So a lot of kids traumatized by this by literally seeing a rocket explode in the air that had a teacher on it. We're in Reagan's America, which I'll talk about a little more in depth later. This year, we have Out of Africa winning best picture, which again...that movie was not about black struggle in Africa, by the way. I believe that was about two white people falling in love in an era of colonialism. Top Gun, which I believe, one of the first movies that was a direct collaboration between the military and Hollywood. Behind the scenes as a form of military propaganda is the highest grossing film of the year. We have going on Hands Across America. And for those that have seen the movie US, where there's you know, that there's a plot line in there about Hands Across America happening, which is an attempt for people across the country to hold hands from the West Coast to the East Coast to display solidarity. 

So you have a lot of different dynamics playing out in the country. You have these themes of racial solidarity. We hear in a trailer this comment about "we're in Cosby's America, everybody loves black people." And I think you're in this moment in time coming off of the civil rights movement of the 60s in that volatile time and entering into the seventies, you have this period of what's called the Blaxploitation movement and a lot of black cinema being made. That's I think for the most part, being made for black people. But it's certainly centering a lot of storylines that aren't necessarily these kind of like pristine respectability politics storylines. And so the NAACP and other groups are lobbying against the Blaxploitation era. And by the time we get to the mid 80s, it's dying out. And you have the Cosby era in full swing. And I think you have a lot of people really trying to show what blackness is to the white gaze. 

Steven [00:24:39] So we had a few notable actors like in this film, including Rae Dawn Chong and C. Thomas Howell, who are the two main stars of the film. Rae Dawn Chong, obviously, of some fame because of her lineage, so, you know, her father's Tommy Chong of the Cheech and Chong franchise, and she had a pretty interesting acting career. I remember her from Comando, you know, where she was acting alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. And then C. Thomas Howell, of course, comes to us, you know, most famously from The Outsiders. And it's interesting to think about like the rest of their IMDB when you look at it like it's somewhat limited in terms of, you know, their success post Soul Man, even though the film itself was like, you know, commercially successful. C. Thomas Howell, like, went on to do a lot of bit parts in multiple films and TV shows. Rae Dawn Chong had done like I think between Soul Man, The Color Purple and Comando, like those were probably the peak of her career. And they all happened around the same kind of cluster of time in the 80s. But beyond that, like her career seems to have just sputtered out. There were some other kind of notable actors in this film, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who I obviously most folks would know from her time at Seinfeld, which I didn't really watch Seinfeld, but I did watch Veep and I loved Veep. And then Melora Hardin, who was a deep cut for this film. Like I love Melora Hardin from her role as Jan in The Office. So I was super surprised. And Melora Hardin plays like the super problematic white woman who could feel 400 years of oppression and every single thrust could 

Melora Hardin: I could really feel 400 years of oppression and anger and every pelvic thrust. 

Steven: Oh, and then we also had Leslie Nielsen, of course, who played the the racist landlord, and I remember watching a lot of Leslie Nielsen movies thanks to to my family, who, like we didn't understand English, but we understood slapstick comedy. So like a lot of the slapstick comedy,  was the stuff that we watched. 

Brandi: Amazing. Yes. Airplane is still one of my favorite movies and and of course, James Earl Jones, who does go on to have a pretty big career. I mean, going into this, he's obviously a known character actor and is known by some as the voice of Darth Vader. I actually think that people understood him to be that much later on in the game. But he goes on after this to be in like Field of Dreams, like a number of films. So he's at the beginning of his Hollywood breakthrough moment. So C. Thomas Howell is coming out in a time of like an onslaught of... I think this is like peak "white boy teen actor of a certain age" era. So this is the time that you have the Brat Pack happening. You have the Coreys popping off, got like Robert Downey Jr., you know, James Spader. So Howell has a lot of competition at this time. And I'm not prepared to say he's a bad actor, but I'm not necessarily prepared to say that. I think he's a James Spader. 

Steven: So do you agree with Rita Kempley that he's a second string Rob Lowe? 

Brandi: I like him more than Rob Lowe. Of course, I was not a teenager at this time, so I don't know what my choice would have been then. But I always found Rob Lowe to be a bit off putting. And maybe it's because by the time I knew who he was, I also knew that he had done a sex tape with 17 year old girls and whatnot. But in any event, I feel like in the end, when he goes back to being white, like he has a glow up, like how he looks at the beginning of the film versus how he looks in the end when he has that Rae Dawn Chong glow up happening, I actually rate that look. But--. 

Steven:  It's that tanning pill afterglow. 

Brandi: It's that tanning pill afterglow. It's like when it has a completely worn off, so he still has some swarthiness. So I'm not fully prepared to say that I think that Soul Man ruined his career necessarily, as opposed to the fact that he maybe just had a lot of competition and sort of missed out on maybe certain roles that could have been game changers for him. Rae Dawn Chong, is also interesting, because in the 1980s-- I was actually surprised by her IMDB page and how lean it kind of was because I recall her--and what is Denise from The Cosby Show's name? 

Steven: Umm Lisa Bonet. 

Brandi: Lisa Bonet. But like her, Rae Dawn Chong were the black 80s "it Girls," which is fascinating in and of itself because they're both biracial, like Rae Dawn Chong is Asian and black, Lisa Bonet  I believe is white-Jewish and black. But they're the ones that are held up, and you see Rae Dawn Chong in movies like Beat Street and others, playing the girl that guys have to become better people to earn, which is actually a similar role up what she's playing in here. He has to become a better man in order to earn her love. But then she does, like you said, she does kind of like peter out by the end of the eighties. And in some some of her later comments she seems to think-- I don't want to put words in her mouth-- but the indicators are that there is this belief that Soul Man harmed their careers in some ways. But again, I'm not 100 percent sure if I would say that I know that to be true. 

Steven: OK, Brandi. So we just talked about the history of the film. We talked about the history of the moment. And we're about to get into the argument. What are you trying to say about this film? 

Brandi: So I am arguing that this is the most progressive movie to come out of the nineteen eighties with parentheses made by white people. And I actually am almost inclined to say that I think that it's the most progressive with a period on it. But I just don't want people coming at me with some movie that I didn't remember. So I'm going to I'm going to say I'm comfortable saying by white people, 

Steven: I'm going to argue the counter and all I'm going to say right now is good luck. 

Brandi: I don't need luck..When you have facts, when you have receipts, when you have heart. You don't need luck, my friend. 

Steven: You just need four hundred years of...

Brandi and Steven: Oppression. 

Brandi: And with every single period in this next section, you're going to feel me breaking the chains of that oppression. 

Segment B: Q&A with guest judge Kwesi Chappin

Brandi: And we're back with a special guest for our program, Kwesi Chappin, did I get that right? 

Kwesi: You got it. You got it right. (laughs)

Brandi: You got me all nervous. (laughs)

Brandi: So Kwesi is our special guest judge. Kwesi, I've known for years we worked together at an organization called Color of Change, the largest online racial justice organization in the country with seven million members. He is the former senior political director there. In his tenure, his team led efforts to activate millions of voters... Of black voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida for the 2020 general election and in Georgia for the general and runoff election. So if you ever see Kwesi in the streets, you need to thank him, please. He's also a D.J., content creator, tastemaker. He is one of like three black people I've ever met in my life that loves the show. Seinfeld and the other two people are his friends. Kwesi's qualifications for being a judge are that he is black. He knows white people. He was alive in the 80s and he is also my friend and therefore obligated to side with me no matter what. (laughs) Welcome to the show, Kwesi. How are you doing? 

Kwesi: I'm doing great and thank you for that intro. And just just to the viewers and listeners know, I will be unbiased in my judgment, I take my judge role very seriously. Steven, just letting you know that.

Steven: I have I have complete faith in you. You know, as a fellow DJ, I have complete faith that we can be impartial. 

Brandi: I mean I mean, honestly, if I had known that, I wouldn't have invited you. But it's fine (laughs)

Kwesi: Fair enough. (laughs)

Brandi: Um, so tell me. I know we know each other from color of change. We both have moved on. Talk to me a little bit about what you are up to these days. 

Kwesi: That's a great question. Right now, I am up to the same mischief I was doing at Color Of Change. Still going to be in the progressive district attorney world getting the good ones elected. You know at the end of the day, I am still electing the cops, so electing cops and "the good ones", and working on a couple of projects. I'll be doing some social impact with my free time. You know, when you're not working and trying to save America with the 2020 elections, it gives you some free time to work on some social impact projects that hopefully will be kicking off pretty soon. 

Brandi: Cool. So I well, I want to pull on that a little bit before we transition. So this movie actually does take place at a law school. I went to law school. I know from experience there are a lot of horrible people there and a lot of them go on to become district attorneys. So, you know, I think because of the ways in which black people interact with the criminal justice system and the legal system, which actually is touch upon on this movie, you know, there is a hesitation (to become a D.A.). I know for me, I wasn't trying to be a D.A. when I came out of law school. So talk to me a little bit about why you think it is so important to do this work around electing progressive D.A.s. 

Kwesi: Yeah, you can want to change the system as much as you want, but literally, the district attorney-- just look at George Floyd, OK? Mike Freeman, the district attorney in Minneapolis, proves as a reason it's like, oh, I'm not going to get Derek Chauvin arrested. I don't see any charges here. That's literally the district attorney. So Mike Freeman, shout out to him, be the best asshole, worst D.A. in the country in terms of being able to show: "Alright, here's what happens when you have someone in power and what happens when they happen to be not in the community or doesn't get, you know, criminal justice reform and they're deciding who to charge and who not to the charge." In fact Soul Man is a perfect example of that, of how the main character gets arrested. If he was really black, he would've been facing some real charges, not just walk away. He would have been in that jail for a while. 

Steven: Well-- he did miss his finals... 

Brandi: Fair point. I mean, I do think that's actually important. And we'll get to that a little more in terms of when people go to law school and then they go out into the world and they accumulate a certain amount of power, that ability to see the humanity in the people that they're encountering, whether that's in the legal system, in the criminal justice system, whether that's in contracts, whether that's anywhere, you do worry about that experience of having a lawyer that, you know, only sees your color and what they believe to be true of you as a person. So that's another reason why I think this movie is so ahead of its time. But before we get to my arguments, we just want to ask you a couple questions. So were you familiar with Soul Man before we invited you on this podcast? 

Kwesi: Actually, yes. I've seen Soul Man a couple of times in the late 80s and 90s. 

Brandi: And  you went back. You went back for another taste? 

Kwesi: Oh, I got me two scoops of that this week. 

Brandi:  And did you like it before? Or had you thought anything about it before we asked you to be on this podcast?

Kwesi:  I had many thoughts about Soul Man. You know, when I was a kid watching this movie, I actually  liked it.  But then you you realize the amount of black face that goes on in the movie. You're like ummm how is that really good for folks?  But I actually did like the movie, even this week. Rewatching it, I actually laughed at some parts. 

Brandi: It's still good. I'm sorry, I'm not sorry. How do you feel about Rae Dawn Chong? Do you remember her from the 80s? I know we're like the younger end, but... 

Kwesi: I do remember her and listening to the beginning of the podcast, yes she was the IT girl for for the 80s. What was that movie she was in? Yes, cute and attractive, you know, typica, light skinned black woman, maybe a multiracial person, But ya'll asked the question what happened? Halle Berry happened. That's what happened. Right. 

Brandi: So you're saying another multiracial person replaced her?

Kwesi: There can only be one. This is Hollywood 80s, what are you talking about? You think they're going to have multiple Black folks running around?

Brandi: Well there WERE! You had Lisa Bonet. Now you did have Lisa Bonet and Rae Dawn Chong, and they were running around the same time. 

Kwesi: And that's two...alright. 

Segment C: The Debate

Brandi:  OK, so here we go. I'm going to make three key arguments. I could make more, but I don't want to overwhelm people with my genius. So I've narrowed it down to three key arguments that I'm going to make for why I think that Soul Man was ahead of its time in the most progressive movie of the 1980s made by white people. So the first point that I think is crucial for us to get into here is whether or not this is even blackface, because I think we operated off of a lot of assumptions that this is blackface. You know, we keep making jokes about it. That was a lot of the critique at the time. But I think it is important for us to really examine does this actually meet the smell test as far as this being blackface? 

So just to drop on folks a little bit of historical knowledge. So historically, portrayal of blackface tends to be when people darken their skin with something like shoe polish, grease paint, burnt cork, and paints on enlarged lips or other exaggerated features and is steeped in centuries of racism. It had been around I didn't look up the date for when it started, but but certainly seemed to have a resurgence in popularity post civil war and going into Jim Crow America. And so you see these like traveling theater acts and musical acts of white people essentially making money off of imitating a depiction of blackness that they were invested in, in order to maintain a system of white supremacy. Let me put it like that. It peaked in popularity in a time in the United States when demands for civil rights by recently emancipated people triggered a certain amount of racial hostility. And it's still used in different ways, shapes and forms, which we'll talk about. 

But [historical blackface] certainly is, I would say, a certain amount of assertion of power, control and degradation. And this is also something that's been said by David Léonard, a professor of comparative ethnic studies and American studies at Washington State University. He says not only is it an assertion of power and control, but "it allows a society to routinely and historically imagine African-Americans as not fully human. It serves to rationalize violence and Jim Crow segregation." And I'd like to play a clip of some historical blackface. I don't know if Steven, do we just want to mark that or do you want to play it now so Kwesi can hear it? 

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_swtbIi2F0

Chick: What's the matter with you boy shooting up that man's henhouse? 

Cotton: I'll shoot up any chicken trying to follow me home. 

Chick: Well, why don't you get a job and go to work? 

Cotton: Well I almost had me a job this morning.. 

Chick: Where? 

Cotton: I went down to the post office and asked that man if he could let me have a job as one of them letter totters. 

Chick: No Cotton. You mean a mail carrier? 

Cotton: I mean, the man said before he put me in a situation he had to put me through a simple self-examination? 

Chick: No, stupid. You mean a civil service examination? 

Brandi: So that was Cotton and Chick Watts. We may have to bleep this out but like, fuck these people. But these are folks that were doing comedy shows. Cotton Watts performed blackface well into the 1960s at various supper clubs. And again, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about historical blackface. And I think that there's two pieces that are key here. First, aesthetic and vocal. So if you were to watch the clip, you'll see Cotton is donning a leopard suit, making exaggerated movements, he's wearing a wig, a black face paint, the large white painted lip. You can hear in the vocal that he's speaking in this kind of slow, drawn out Southern drawl. You can tell it's a white man, or at least I feel like I can. But I can also tell that he's trying to affect a blaccent. So that's the first key to historical blackface aesthetics. So the second is dehumanization. So when you look at it again, it is quite clearly a white man giving an exaggerated depiction of what he thinks or wants people to believe that black people are specifically black men. The clip is all about making black people seem lazy, money hungry, intellectually inferior, unable to string together English words. And in fact, his wife, Chick, you know, is repeatedly calling him stupid in the clip. So that's that's historical blackface. 

I would submit that in Soul Man that is not actually what we're seeing take place for the majority of the movie. Mark Watson, the lead character does not in any way affect a blaccent. He doesn't change a lot about his style of dress. There's a few notable instances where he does. In one instance, he runs into his friends from California and he knows that if his friends hear his voice, they might recognize him. So he pretends to be hearing and visually impaired. And there's this awkward moment where he's clearly doing this bad Stevie Wonder impression that's a little bit questionable. And then I think there's another instance where, again, he's trying to obscure his identity. So he does dip into some blaccent. But again, like other than those instances where he's explicitly trying to convince white people that he is not the Mark Watson that they know other than those moments, he pretty much remains his same like corny self with his same, normal accent. He doesn't add anything on to his nose. He doesn't, like, wear black lipstick or make any of his facial features look different so that aesthetic is not quite the same. He also doesn't paint his skin every day. He is using tanning pills to make his skin darker.

The other time where he does dip into like a little bit of what I would say, like blackface play is when he goes to the Black Law Student Association meeting and his friend, who I refer to as future Chuck Schumer, he goes to his friend and he's like "this girl that I like, invited me to this Black Law Student Association meeting. What is that?" And his friend, Chuck Schumer says that he heard that the group is militant. So in order to fit in, Mark dresses up in Black Panther attire, the theme song to Shaft is playing. He goes to this meeting and as soon as he walks in, he actually sees what I'm convinced is a Barack Obama character. Like, I really think when they were filming this on campus, they were walking around the Harvard Law School. I swear, I feel like they saw Barack Obama. And I feel like this character is supposed to be him. I'm convinced of it. But he sees him. He sees Sarah, his love interest, and a bunch of black yuppies staring back at him, confused. So in this instance, the joke is played to make him look like a fool because he's trying to reflect what he thinks he should be as a black man, trying to get the girl and is promptly made to look stupid. Also, he's at Harvard. He's trying to get an A in class. 

So, again, I would say that this historical use of blackface and the intentions and purposes in the way it's played out does not apply here. I would say if you want to see examples, you should look at Jimmy Kimmel doing Karl Malone. You know, China recently came under fire for blackface performers at a national New Year's Eve celebration. There's Zwarte Piete in Amsterdam, which is like this, like little black Santa's helper that's supposed to be Santa's slave that they do every year. And they swear it's not blackface. But I've been there and it definitely is. So there's a lot of examples of rampant use of blackface that have extended into the modern era. So that's historical blackface.

 Where perhaps it could get a little fuzzy, as when we talk about modern iterations of what is known as digital blackface. And so digital blackface is a term that originated with Dr. Joshua Lumpkin Green. Green defines digital blackface as "a term by which to frame the current appropriation of the black masculine body." Dr. Laura Michelle Jackson expands on this term in her book White Negroes. And through her academic and pop cultural work on cultural appropriation, Jackson discusses digital blackface broadly irrespective of gender identity, and calls it, "the act of inhabiting a black persona and playing digital technology to co-opt a perceived cache or black cool, and it involves a play-acting of blackness in a minstrel like fashion." Examples that she talks about are the use of gifs and particularly like black people, as gifs to show exaggerated emotion online, pretending to be a black person online to shut down critiques of racism. An example of this being when folk singer Ani DiFranco was holding songwriting retreats at Plantations and her black fans were like, "what the hell wrong with you, Ani DiFranco?" Some of her white fans were caught creating profiles online that were supposed to be black women. And they were using those profiles to say, "as a black woman, I don't mind that Ani DiFranco hosts events on Plantations." And just pro-tip for people online, if you ever see a comment from somebody that starts off with "as a black person," I guarantee you that ain't a black person, just as an aside.... 

But again, I would say you don't actually see that in this movie, Mark, as the lead character is actually grappling with how to respond to a lot of different forms of racism. He's not trying to deny or erase it, he encounters a range of racism that goes from explicit to more subtle. And through that process, I would say he becomes even more grounded in his humanity and is able to see the humanity of black people in a way that his liberal Chuck Schumer friend or the white girl in there that's obsessed with dating men of color could never. Two more quick arguments that I'll throw in. So, two, the character is not supposed to be a hero initially. Like, he doesn't have integrity. You're not supposed to root for him. 

Soul Man movie clip: So the way I figure it, we merge a few corporations. When the antitrust suits come up, we handle the defense. We make our first mil at 30, retire to the islands at 35. 

Brandi: So he's a scumbag. He is on par with Mark Zuckerberg or some other people like that. He's trying to make money and then he has to go on this hero's journey to redemption, which is a quite commonly used trope. We've seen that with Scrooge in a Christmas Carol. We've seen that with Johnny in Cobra Kai. And what is being introduced in this film, I think, is this important distinction between empathy and sympathy in the human condition. 

I would say that in the movie, his friend Chuck Schumer, Schumer and others, I can't remember the guy's name. And so he's not actually Chuck Schumer. So please, Chuck Schumer, don't sue me for saying this, but he kind of is like him. He says he wants to, like, run for office and stuff, but like he has sympathy for the plight of black people. He can see instances of racism playing out. He's the one that's supposed to in some ways be the sort of moral consciousness of Mark challenging Mark as he goes down this journey of pretending to be black. But when the chips are down, there's like multiple instances throughout the movie where racism is happening and his friend doesn't call it out. And it's sort of left up to Mark, who's inhabiting this black body, to go back and forth with. "Do I speak out? Do I say something about this or do I keep it moving forward," which is actually an experience that I think a lot of people of color, people from marginalized groups face all the time, like, do I smash on this person or do I act like it's cool? Because I know if I smash, I'm going to be the angry one. I'm going to look crazy. And all of our white allies who want to say something on Twitter and have hashtag Black Lives Matter in their Twitter feed don't actually step up and say things when the chips are down. And so I think that exploration between sympathy, which has boundaries and an empathy that Mark has to get to in order to become a better man at the end, I think is is actually a fascinating piece about this. And I don't know, Steven, if you have cued up the clip at the end where he's talking with James Earl Jones, but I would like to play that clip.

Movie clip:

Professor:  You must have learned a great deal more than you bargained for through this experience, WATSON. 

Mark: Yes, sir. 

Professor: A Harvard Law graduate can do a great many things, make a lot of money. Teach. Become a senator or judge. A Harvard law graduate has power Mr. Watson. I hope that I teach my students to use that power responsibly. Even generously. But you've learned something that I can't teach them, you've learned what it feels like to be black. 

Mark: No, sir. 

Professor: I beg your pardon? 

Mark: I don't really know what it feels like, sir. It I didn't like it, I could always get out. It's not the same, sir, 

Professor:  You've learned a great deal more than I thought. We won't press charges. You can stay.

Brandi: So I actually think that's that's the core piece here. And that's also what I'm talking about when I'm talking about sympathy versus empathy. 

Brandi: So he could have understood more through having black friends, the black experience, enough to have a certain amount of sympathies. But until he faces that prospect of like going to jail and having certain experiences or being a black man dating, you know, a white woman, which we'll get to in a little bit and and having the reactions from her family that he has, then he can't actually began to know what that experience is like. But even in knowing that as a touchpoint for a school year or however long he inhabits that he still walks away with an awareness that even then he doesn't fully know the full range of experience. And to me, earlier we talked about Carol Black and and her work and her documentary films later on. And I think those are actually a continuation of this thought that she's beginning to articulate in Soul Man. And I think she's suggesting here that that white people never truly know about that life and that for white people, the journey has to be about breaking, breaking that sympathy to empathy boundary and moving away from centering the experience of whiteness as a default. I think that's a little bit what she's talking about when she does her documentary about Westernized education that's centered around whiteness. And I think she's playing with that a little bit here through the use of satire in a way that because of how people responded to that perception of blackface never really quite gets through. So that's the second reason why I think this is a little more Progressive. 

And then the final point I'll make is that, you know, a lot of the critique, particularly from the black community, about this movie, was about how it trafficked in stereotypes about black people. I think one of the clips that widely circulated was this clip of Mark Watson lead character. He's dating this white woman that's obsessed with dating people of color, starts to date him as a black man. She is the daughter of the Donald Trump real estate figure that we mentioned earlier. And so she takes Mark Watson home. This like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner moment. And as he's meeting the father, the mother and her little brother, each of them have a fantasy of what they think he's like. And so here's a clip of the mother reacting or the fantasy that pops up into her head around Mark Watson. 

Soul Man movie clip:  All my life, I've only been able to think about one thing white women and now at last I'm going to have one!!

Steven: The best part of the best part about that clip is, is the gasp at the end with the mom

Brandi: Yeah, that is definitely a bodice ripping in case you're wondering what that was. OK, this clip is wild. And and so it's like in her head, she's seen this like black man that wants to, like, ravish this white woman. And she's into that. The father is seeing him dressed like a pimp, eating watermelon, trying to, like, knock up his white daughter and then the son at that time, Prince is huge and all over MTV. So when he looks at him, he sees this like a cool rock and roll Prince figure. And so all of them are projecting onto him their belief in what being black is. I mean, he's just like this, like a corny dude sitting there, not actually embodying any of those things. 

I think that speaks to what I think is actually the broader point of this film is actually not about black people and who black people are. It's about how white people respond to black people. And I think it's offering this thesis that even though we are past the civil rights movement and even though white people are operating under this assumption that racism is over because it doesn't look like that type of blackface minstrelsy that we saw in the clip that that we played earlier, it's still there. It's still existing in the ways in which black people are fundamentally treated. It doesn't matter that you're this black kid at Harvard that comes from this, quote unquote, good family. When you sit at Donald Trump's table and try to marry his daughter, at the end of the day, he's still going to see you as a watermelon eating pimp. And I think that is a really interesting and compelling point. 

And then I also want to pick apart this last piece, the black people in it, the actual black characters themselves, Sarah, the Barack Obama character, they actually play into the respectability politics that inform the type of movies at that time. And so I think people look at the synopsis and say, black woman single. Mother, and then they project all of this stuff onto what that supposed to mean about her, but in the movie it's actually said very clearly she got married young and she got divorced and she's a single mother sharing custody. So it's not this like, you know, single welfare queen trope that's being floated around in Reagan's America at that time. It's like she's responsible. She is staying with her grandparents in Boston. She's getting letters from her father in California. So they go out of their way to show that she actually is  part of this like respectability, mold, and that she's like having to push through and work jobs and do all of this other stuff to keep all of the balls in the air. 

But I would say my critique of it would actually be that it almost tries too hard to show black people as perfect juxtaposed to the white perception or the white gaze of black people and blackness. And so, again, I could smash really hard. I have about four or five more points in my PowerPoint that I could make today, but I feel like I've put together a compelling enough case that I'm going to rest my case. Steven. 

Steven: Wow, I mean, what can I say? Well, I mean, interesting points. You know, I think some very strong points. So I'm going to couch mine. I'll try I'll get to the black face at the very end. That'll be my last argument, because we have to address that. But I got four arguments. The first is that the ends where the film lands the lesson for Mark Watson of that transition from sympathy to empathy, the ends don't justify the means. And there's two different ways I think about this. One is in order for white people to learn the lesson that even in Cosby's America, racism still exists like is done in such a harmful way, like it's an entire film where the lead character is in blackface for most of the film in the film itself, like if we play within the plot of the film in order for Mark Watson to learn that lesson, he causes some significant harm, like he takes a scholarship away from a black woman. 

And I think that to me is where I have a harder time getting to the point of redemption with this character and where things end up, because I think that actually has parallels to our real life today, where we've seen, like white people, you know, taking on and appropriating either blackface or other cultures and taking opportunities away from other people. You know, most famously, I think recently in this past year, Jessica Krug, who is a white woman from the Midwest who projected that she was an Afro Latina from Puerto Rico, you know, or an attorney over at Latino Justice, who was for most of her lifetime pretending to either be Colombian or Puerto Rican whenever it suited her and like did take opportunities away from other Latina lawyers. Like, you know, she sat on boards that were just exclusively meant for Latinas, you know? And I think that's the thing about what Mark Watson does in this film that is hard for me to to redeem, even though I'll get to the point where he lands and what he decides to do. But I think that's hard for me that in order to land this lesson for white people, you had to have committed so much harm along the way. And I don't think the ends justify the means. 

The second is, you know, I took a quick look to understand if this was a science fiction film, you know, and I looked on the Wikipedia page and it for sure is listed as a comedy and it was intended for teens. And the reason I bring that up is because this film does not adhere to the laws of physics on Earth. Brandi, and a couple of different ways. First of all, the reaction of Professor Banks and Sarah Walker at the end, just yada, yada, being that like this dude who they thought was like black is actually white. They just kind of like forgave it. They were just like, OK, you know, Sarah Walker put up the strongest fight, but even she changed her mind, like the moment that like Mark Watson punched the white you know, the racist white dude in the cafeteria. I don't I don't know how you get to a place where you're like, that's cool. And then Professor Banks, the last part of the clip that we played is him literally saying, OK, you can stay like it's all good. That does not conform to the laws of reality here on Earth. And I don't think that is a reaction that a black person who finds out that a person, you know, is pretending to be black and is actually white, I don't see that being the reaction that they would take that doesn't conform for me. 

Second, I think that going from like ignorant to anti-racist in the span of five months by going to law school to me is just impossible. Like because he came from an institution that was equally like racist, like he was going to UCLA. It had its own diversity problems. It had its own problems with black representation and to all of a sudden go to Harvard and make that kind of leap, you know, very quickly. I just don't see that happening because, again, it would take us being in a different universe in which time actually functioned differently. I could see that happening like in a multiverse. But this isn't the latest phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And therefore, I feel like this film and where it sits just does not adhere to reality. The other point I'll make is that, you know, you're making the argument that this is the most progressive film in the 1980s. Well, let me throw a handful of films that I would throw into the mix 

Brandi: Made by white people, made by white people. Just to clarify, 

Steven: I got you. I got you made by white people. Here's some films to consider. In addition, if you're looking for a film that challenges patriarchy. We can throw out Alien, you know, by Ridley. If you're looking for a film that's anticapitalist, let's throw out Robocop, which I think is more progressive than Soul Man. If you're looking for a film that actually tackles race, there is a film called White Dog about a black dog trainer who is trying to untrain a white dog from attacking black people. This film, I think, goes into it. And I think that would have been a better pick for this subject than Soul Man. And lastly, and even more, antiracist movie Nightmare on Elm Street, the difference between the boogie man and people's minds and dreams versus the reality. I think that's a better argument for this. Let's tackle blackface really quickly. 

This film's overall runtime was an hour and forty one minutes. That's 101 minutes. Mark Watson was white for 17 minutes of that and he was in blackface from about minute 17 to about an hour and a half into the film. That's a long time to be in blackface. And I will say, like the basketball scene to me is the most obvious place where this happens, because when the basketball season is too long and if you take a close enough look by his shorts, like down by the short shorts, which were typical of the 1980s, you'll see there's like a little fade going on where it goes, it becomes really white, just above just above the basketball shorts. He was clearly in blackface. At the end of the day, we're talking about a film in which a white character is in blackface for over an hour. And I don't know how you can argue against that. And that's where I'm going to leave it. 

Brandi: First of all, that you were looking that closely at his shorts line is weird to me, but I guess that's part of the line between the storyline of the movie and what they actually had to do to accomplish the movie. So did he sit in makeup in a way that probably more closely resembles a certain amount of blackface? Sure. 

Steven: At least a million dollars in the four million dollar budget of this movie was just on the makeup itself. 

Brandi: I doubt I doubt it because it wasn't that good. But I think that but as far as the plot point goes, he's taking tanning pills and he actually does have sex with a white woman who, you know, presumably sees his entire body and sees it as black. I did have question that we won't get into for this, the logistics of what that would look like, but. But OK, fair enough. So you made some interesting points, Steven Renderos, I'll give you that. I am going to pull the black card and say you saying what you think black people are going to do is a little bit of weird...weird Flex. 

Steven: Fair enough. 

Brandi: And I'm also going to point out that Rachel Dolezal, as we speak, has a thriving hair braiding business. And I guarantee you her clientele is overwhelmingly black. So as far as the levels of what black people are willing to forgive, you would be surprised. I also, I think in your point about the White Dog movie, the racist white dog, I actually think that reinforces my point, which is that I think art has to be jarring to be changing. I think sometimes when people are too afraid to push the envelope, what ends up happening is that there's either so much nuance that the underlying message gets lost or it's so watered down that we aren't confronted with what's happening in a movie in a way that makes us reassess our thinking. So what I think when you're talking about that racist white dog and that movie like you're watching it and you're like, wow, that is really messed up. But I do think that, again, part of what I think is important about this movie as a comedy to land is that it's supposed to have a shock value, like you're supposed to feel uncomfortable with it. And I think the response from the critic community in particular speaks to that. 

I think when you look at Rita Kempley's review and she talks about how offensive it is to Boston Brahmins and all of this, or like Boston, I forget how she frames that Boston preppies, she's revealing herself. She's revealing the fact that she's actually more uncomfortable with how white people are being depicted in this movie. And they pivot to this idea that blackface is so offensive and that's why they don't like it. But really, I think the discomfort is all of the displays of white racism, whether it's the white woman, anthropology student that's constantly looking for dick of color. And in the last part of the movie, she shows up with a Native American man. You know, that is a specific archetype of a type of racism we experience in our society that veers from the type of KKK racism that we normally see in movies. When you see the little brother, you know, obsessed with Prince and projecting onto this black man that he doesn't know all of this cool and cache.

Even in that basketball scene. Part of what happens in that scene is that the two white teams are fighting over Mark because they see he's black and they assume he knows how to play basketball and he's not even tall like he is. I don't know how tall C. Thomas Howell is and in real life, but he does not necessarily read as a basketball player from any other standpoint other than the fact that he's being perceived as black. And so the fact that they fight over him in that way, again, reveals a certain amount of whiteness that's not rooted in our traditional understanding of racism as depicted in the media. But this other type of this assumption of cool cache that people try to latch on to. And then you have, again, the Donald Trump figure. 

So, again, the way that he explores all the different types of white anxiety and reaction to blackness in this very, like, shocking way that makes you like look at it for however long you documented that he was in the black skin, I think is actually part of why it resonates. Like, I guarantee you that most people who look at Nightmare on Elm Street are look at like a number of the movies that you named would not peg those as movies about race or capitalism or other things, I would say puts a certain amount of depth of thought that, frankly, most people don't have, especially not when they're going to watch the movies. So does it matter if Nightmare on Elm Street is about racism or whatever category or box you check that you said it was about, if nobody that watches that movie gets it or understands or takes away that message. How does that in any way change society or force a conversation? So, yeah, those would be some of the things that I would offer here. And then also, if we're able to go back and pull the clip of Mark Watson in and when he says all of the stuff that he's going to do, although, you know, restorative justice that he's going to do to make up for that semester that he was in blackface, that's the other thing here. 

From a timeline perspective, we're not talking like Jessica Klug. We're not talking about decades or years of inhabiting, you know, black presence. Also Rae Dawn Chong who was-- we find out later-- the other person that would have gotten the scholarship because if they didn't find a black person in the Los Angeles area, they would have expanded it out to the state of California. And she was in another city. So she was going to get it. But then he stepped up. She still made a way and was at the college doing her thing because guess what? Black women find a way. We do our thing. And so he actually did not harm her necessarily in the same way. And she got an A at the end of the semester so that level of harm is not there for her. And then the restorative justice that he has to do in his career path as a direct result of this experience has the potential to yield more societal benefit. Then you know what it may have been perceived that he took away for those three months at Harvard. 

Steven: Well, let me let me push back on the restorative justice peace. And for a little bit, 

Brandi: You know, when we planned out this structure, I got the last word. But I won't let you do that. Do do what you do. (laughs)

Steven: Restorative justice assumes that Rae Dawn Chong as the person harmed is centered, and her needs in particular, are centered in that process. That didn't happen here. This was like Mark Watson saying, I know how to make this right. And that's not restorative justice. And like and basically he just gives her a check. Did you get the check? All right, cool. We're good. That's not restorative justice. 

Brandi: Look. Hey look. As pro-reparations, I'll take a check. Let's start there. 

Steven: Yes, no doubt. But I think. 

Brandi: Don't turn down a check. 

Steven: No, but I'm saying shouldn't she have been part of the conversation to say how much exactly that check should be? I feel like she should or 

Brandi:  No! It should have been the amount of what the scholarship was for. How is it going to be like the scholarship was for...

Steven: That wasn't the only harm...

Brandi: Twenty five thousand. Well, and he cuts her a check for-- you're saying that she had fifty thousand dollars worth of damages and he should have asked her, is that what you're arguing? 

Steven: She moved. She moved to Boston. Now what they don't explain in the film. But I'm wondering if her grandparents moved out there to support the child care. 

Brandi: You're adding stuff--. 

Steven:  I'm just I'm just saying, 

Brandi: You adding stuff that wasn't even in there!

Steven: She worked she worked a low wage job in a cafeteria. To make ends meet, like there are things that she has to do that she wouldn't have had to do had she had the scholarship. 

Brandi: Maybe. But I feel like you're adding a lot of stuff. If we're just doing a line by line read of what happened in the plot, I feel like you're adding a whole bunch of stuff...a whole bunch of maybes that were not clarified 

Steven: But but you said it's restorative justice. I'm saying what he did at the end is not restorative justice. 

Brandi: And then in the end, she also was like.... I  want to go back to your point, your last point, about him knocking out the people. So I think one of the things that struck me about the end of the movie, is one persistent storyline throughout the movie. There's these two white guys and they're kind of the most obvious form of racism. They're supposed to be Republicans, probably. And so they're constantly making these jokes about black people like and, you know, what black people do. And then when they see Mark Watson as a black man, they're like, "oh, hey, no offense. Right?" And then he has to decide whether or not he's going to say something to them. At the end of the movie, Rae Dawn Chong and her son are leaving the cafeteria. And these two white guys come in and they make a joke about test tube babies. And then they see Mark Watson, who's back to his white self, and he knocks them out in a, let's say, unrealistic way. But he did that. 

And I actually think to me, this is also a really important point, again, about what it means and doesn't mean to be a white ally, because I do think for white people, sometimes they convince themselves that allyship is stepping back. And to me, I think allyship is actually stepping forward, actually being willing to not leave the onus on black people to knock crazy white people out, but for you to be willing to do that yourself. And so her seeing that, her seeing that this white man is going to, like, ride for me the way my father would, the way other black men in my life would, is part of why she does forgive him and move forward. And so she did get-- we're probably going to have to bleep this out-- Restorative justice dick in the end. Which, I think (laughs) was fine. 

Steven: I don't even know what to say to that. (laughs). Alright Kwesi, you've heard us go back and forth now. Where are you coming down on this? What are your thoughts? Feel free the floor is yours. 

Segment E: The Decision

Kwesi: Oh, wow. OK, OK. Yall want to hear the scores of how I went through things for sure. Bandi, I'll start with you. You know, definitely a five on creativity for sure. You you definitely.. 

Brandi: On a scale of one to five right?

Kwesi: On a scale one to five. Definitely a five...you reached... you reached for the stars on this one. The restorative justice one... that was a BIG reach.. Energy, I'll give you a four you delivered very well and then receipts, breaking down black face and pulling up some clips that was definitely great. I learned a lot around that. I will give you a four on that. I felt like you missed a couple of receipts. Viability, I'll give you three. 

Brandi: (Gasps). 

Kwesi: I'll give it to you, you really did come hard on the rebuttal. You really ripped the threads around the white dog. You touched it because White Dog is not as famous as Soul Man it won't get as much play. But you ripped the threads on Nightmare on Elm Street, Aliens and Robocop. Although they are really good arguments, though, Steven, I would give you that. As someone who's a deep thinker, that's looked at Robocop many different ways, I appreciate that analysis, Steven. Definitely a five. I really love the creativity. Really love what you said around Nightmare on Elm Street, the OCP and the capitalism that is there. The energy is definitely a four.  You brought it. You matched her energy. I really want to acknowledge White Dog. That was a good deep dive and brought up a good conversation. Viability is a four. And for a rebuttal, you got a little weak. Although you came back and like, listen, that restorative justice is bullshit. I wanted you to come a little bit harder. Brandi going back to the receipts and by viability. When you talk about blackface and movies, I felt like you missed the big one here. So we just gonna ignore Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder. Right. 

Brandi: You know, I thought about bringing that because I actually do think that's a more aggressive form of blackface. That this is when people say, "oh, Soul Man could never be made today," I'm like "how Sway? cuz we got a lot of examples of that still going on..

Kwesi: To this day. Yeah, right. And then in particular, looking at that in terms of viability? Yes it's still happening to this day and it's done in a comedy format. Right. This is a this is a comedy movie. Why is blackface happening? Tanning pills? The whole like the whiteness of this movie really came through. When you have--

Brandi: Because it was made by a white woman. I mean, it's a white woman.

Kwesi: 100%. I get it, it's the 80s, I get it. But the fact that you ignore black folks in the eighties and what they're going through in the communities...Crack. There's a whole crack epidemic. Right. So people are hitting hard, hard times right now. 

Brandi: Yea. 

Kwesi: That's why all the sudden her father's letter hits even harder when you're coming from that aspect. Right. Like literally shit's fucked up where I'm at. Right. You're the hope. And I'm sending this letter. And then it's this quote from her grandparents that hits hard. "I'm sure Mark's people are proud about him." God damn. And that's when Mark starts realizing, "oh maybe what I'm doing is wrong." 

Brandi: So you're making my case for me by adding this....

Kwesi: I hear you... but it's like THIS is when you realize that you're being fucked up? 

Brandi: He's a rich kid from L.A. that had probably never met a black person up until he saw Rae Dawn Chong. I think that's the point that most white people, even ones that are hashtag resist or whatever, will never have intimate engagements with black people. And not only not even have those intimate engagements. They will never know even an ounce of what it looks like and feels like and tastes like to be treated a certain way in this society, which I think is the whole point of the movie, like you will never know. You can try. We could try to be better. We could all try to be better. And we are obligated to be better. But don't sit up here and think that you know. Don't think that this white boy from L.A. whose millionaire father decided he's going to, you know, put his money towards a timeshare instead of his tuition knows a damn thing at the end of the day about what it means to be a black person who has weighted on your shoulder, all of the like, struggle of having to succeed despite all the odds set up against you. 

Kwesi: Now, if you like, this is just this movie was all about white privilege. Right. And how he just like that James Earl, like James Earl Jones' character, who--

Brandi: Who probably still doesn't have tenure if Cornel West was an indication, 

Kwesi: I want to say don't you know his ass probably got fired. One he is running this committee and people have gotten expelled for way worse. Right. How he preps him and invests in him and then Mark just gets a slap on a the hand.. And I was like, hold up. You get to stay at Harvard. And like you realize his punishment was going to work at the dining hall? That was his punishment, having to get a job. And my dad and his Fila tracksuits are making me do a twenty five percent interest loan. And the skinny boy really knocks out those two racist dudes? Right. He just knocked them out into tables? Right. Obviously he gets fired. He gets fired. Ok you should get fired, but you still didn't get expelled from school? We have to suspend too much disbelief in this movie. 

Brandi: But that's the most believable part about the movie. He did all that stuff, but he's still a white man. So guess what? (laughs) Guess what? He's still here. 

Kwesi: You know this movie is also very 1986. And there is a revelation that this is definitely and inside/outside conversation. The analysis that was given about the dining table scene Brandi, that was beautiful. I'll give you that and I have no problem. I laughed so hard at that because this is how white folks looked at us as black folks in that era. And I was like, oh, it was spot on in on the analysis. But we're just going to ignore the Kareem imitation? I mean we're going to ignore the Kareem imitation. That was black face on top of black face when he went with the Kareem character. Right. He could easily just kept walking. Mark Waston just kept walking when he got confronted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. right. He purposely for the comedy was like, you know what, let me go ahead and do this blind Stevie Wonder impression and put the glasses on. OK, here. Do like some fake sign language and keep it moving. But that was like OK. Was that needed? Like what value add did that give? Then there's Leon, the Barack Obama character. This is the basketball player, the other black male character in this, that guy actually played good in basketball. Right? One, I felt like this is Leon's moment to shine. That's why they literally had that scene to show, like, oh, wow, this is how real black men can play basketball. All right. 

Brandi: Well, I'll argue that I think Leon-- the Barack Obama character-- is actually showing how perfect black people have to be perceived as to make it. So it's like not only do you have to be the straight A Harvard student. You have to play basketball well, you have to dress well. You have to do all of these things. But you know. I think we've all felt that pressure of having to be that model representative of our community that can do everything well. So I actually found that to be really interesting. And Barack Obama plays basketball well, too, which is why I think that they saw him on campus playing basketball and created Leon based on Barack Obama. 

Kwesi: I agree with you on that. And but, like, what really gets me the point, you this obsession with the dudes who just keep going with the racist jokes that you notice, Mark starts off like, "oh, that's a little off." And then, like, he kind of grows in disappointment after maybe the second time. And then there's a time at the library he gives them a really mean look like, all right. That was like whiteness on display. Like he didn't have to do shit. Right. Just looked at it like, oh, OK. And then as if I was like, well, that's not how this would go in Harvard Law. Like either you would've had a conversation with a black law student association. Then the racist white guys said that joke that took things over the line. He only cared because of that test-tube baby remark. Right. Oh, you're talking about literally her, the woman I love right now. I'm going to fight for her honor. That was still about whiteness because it was a personal jab, not a broad one about all Black people. When the jokes were a generalization, Mark could say "oh he's not really talking about black folks." But when he made the test-tube baby remark with her kid there, that's when it became personal. Oh, now it's personal. This is the same energy of like when men get upset about their sister or daughter but not disrespect of women in general. That's the same energy. So it was really whiteness, whiteness and white privilege on display there. I understand this is the eighties. But that did not hold up well. It got even worse throughout. So I will just leave that there. 

But yeah. And just like this was definitely like "can't catch a cab racism." Right. I think there's different levels to blackface. It's like the Chris Rock joke, just because they're not hopping on your back calling you the cab, doesn't mean that being unable to catch a cab isn't also racist. This is definitely 80s racism, where they can't see their own white privilege. You have to ask yourself, why was this movie even made? It is really great to make a comedy to laugh at our struggle, to say -- I get it you're black and you go through stuff. A black man at Harvard goes through hardships, but---

Brandi: OK, OK, I got you. So who won?

Kwesi: I'm I have to go with Steven because just---

Brandi: No! Kwesi. Oh Kwesi. I promise you are not invited back to this show. On everything. I put it on everything. You will never be invited back to this as a guest on this podcast. You will not be a guest on this podcast. 

Kwesi: You can't ignore that white privilege. 

Brandi: That's the whole point. That's the whole point. That is literally the whole point of the movie. It is not made for black people. It is made for white people. 

Kwesi: Clearly. 

Brandi: It is made for white people. It is a white movie, for white people. 

Kwesi: Well, weren't most movies in the eighties like that though? 

Brandi: Most movies that were made for white people in the eighties come at the expense of people of color. To me, if we're sitting here and we're having a conversation about Teen Wolf, that is a classic example of like a white movie being made at that time that is like, you know, dehumanizing black people for a laugh. To me, this is to me more you showing the ridiculousness of white people in this world where all the black people are like these, like admittedly one dimensional, because I don't know that they added a whole lot of depth to the black characters that they introduced. But for all intents and purposes, they are successful black people existing in society and the white people having these, like various types of reactions to them is what the movie is actually about. 

Steven: I just I just think I wonder if it lands for that white audience. Because I think if it is in fact intended for white people, are they picking up on the progressive elements that you've pointed out throughout the film, or are they simply looking at the film through their own lens, through their own bias? In which case, like, I think the things that would stand out in that context to me are like the places where the film does veer off into...like flirts with very stereotypical depictions. I wonder if that is just like, oh, yeah. It just reaffirms like a lot of the things I already think. And isn't that funny. Like, isn't it funny. Yes, Prince. Yes. Like yes. The savagery of like with the with with the mother in the dinner scene like it to me it's like this Chappelle show thing, like at a certain point jokes that were constructed for a particular audience were being received and landed on in an audience that wasn't intended and the meaning changed because of it. And I wonder here, like the things that you're saying are the meaningful parts, do they land with the intended audience that you think this film is for? 

Brandi: Normally I. Do not concede points, I go down with the ship. However, I will say that I will admit that in looking at some of the reviews, Soul Man has had a little bit of a--  I don't know if Soul Man is necessarily a cult classic film, but I think it does have sort of elements of being a cult classic. And when you go on places like Amazon and you see some of the reviews, they are, I think, a little bit troubling. It is an indicator of some of what you're saying is right. Like, I think that people use the fact that Soul Man has kind of disappeared. You can finally rent it on Amazon. But I think for a long time you couldn't even rent it on prime video. Like, it's almost like, in my opinion, white, white liberals had a discomfort with it and just sort of swept it away, almost like it didn't exist. But now you see a little bit of this resurgence. And when you look at some of the reviews, it is like more about, quote unquote, PC culture, which PC culture is usually used as a code for: why can't we just run around in our clan hoods like we used to back in the good old days? So I do concede your point that there is I think because of how it was hidden away, there's a little bit of it going over people's heads as a direct result of that. 

But I do think if you took the movie itself and we actually had a critical discussion and again, also to not to keep beating a dead horse. And I know we have to wrap up soon, but on the blackface thing, to me, I feel like we're in a point in society now where everything is put on the same level and we're not able to have a conversation about systemic harms in a meaningful way because everything is just swept into the same category when it comes to things like this. So if we say as a society, in my opinion, that this movie Soul Man is the exact same as that clip that I played at the top of, you know, that guy talking about black people. You know, any chicken that follows me, I'll shoot them and all of that. If we say that those are both the same and both have to be swept out of society without any conversation, then I really do worry about what that breeds in terms of an ability for us to have any, like, full, robust conversation about  what systemic racism looks like in our society, about what dehumanization looks like in our society, about the various ways that racism works in our society, in ways that we do not acknowledge in the mainstream media landscape. 

And to me, that almost provides cover for a certain type of like white liberalism that we see playing out in this movie that is still playing out today when people have conversations about Barack Obama and other folks. And so that's that would be my worry about linking those things together without divorcing the two. But I certainly do think that whenever you go hard on satire or ridiculousness, there's the same way that if something's too nuanced, it may go over people's heads. There's also the case to be made that when something is so over the top, it goes over people's heads anyway. And I guess that just gets back to the fundamental point that everybody in society is stupid. Kwesi, thank you for coming on. You're not invited back. So like in these last couple of minutes, do you want to shout out your social media? Like, where can people find you? Where can people see what's going on with you? 

Kwesi: Sure. You find me on the Twitters @KwesiC or Instagram. That would be the best way to get a hold of me right now. 

Steven: Thank you, Kwesi. I look forward to having you back. 

Brandi: You're done. You're done. Your career on Bring Receipts was short lived, but. 

Kwesi: Well...fair enough

Brandi: And yes, I'm a sore loser. I'm going to do this every episode I lose. I'm not going to take it well, I do not take losses as well. 

Steven: That wraps it up for this episode of Bring Receipts. Thank you to our special guests, Kwesi Chappin. If you like what you heard, go ahead and subscribe on your favorite platform and tune in next time where I will argue why Sylvester Stallone deserved to win an Oscar for his performance in Rambo First Blood. Until then, hold on to your receipts.